The Body in Sarah Schenirer’s Diary

This chapter examines corporeality in the diary of Sarah Schenirer, the leader of the Beit Ya‘akov movement, which she kept from 1908 to 1913 when she was an unknown seamstress in Kraków struggling with the problems of an unhappy arranged marriage and thinking about ways to increase the involvement of Jewish women in society. Among the topics analysed are Schenirer’s relationship with her mother; her feelings about her physical appearance; how, for Jewish women, corporeality was tamed by ritual, religion, and medicine; and Schenirer’s participation in spa culture. Analysing Schenirer’s allusions to the body in her diary reveals the tensions and contradictions that were an important part of her identity and influenced her later activities, providing new insight into her complex life and leadership.